


funeral pyres

by orphan_account



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Character Study, Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-06
Updated: 2016-01-06
Packaged: 2018-05-12 04:33:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5652637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The smell of burning bodies is as familiar to Lenalee as Jerry's cooking is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	funeral pyres

**Author's Note:**

> something i wrote for rp a while ago.

There's a city that's burning around her as the Level 3 attacks. China is not safe. Everyone is screaming and running, trying to hide their children, trying to hide their elders, trying to hide themselves. The stench of destruction is overwhelming, threatens to invade Lenalee's vessels as she rushes forward after activating her Innocence.

The aftermath is strange, like a mass burial, except not. There is the smell she knows: destruction in the form of voracious flames. The civilians and her comrades burn like the cities they once occupied.

It is quiet, nonetheless. One can argue even peaceful, in fact.

The stillness drums in her bones as she gathers together with Lavi and Allen. It was much more comfortable earlier, when the buildings and the bodies were still burning.

 

The smell of burning bodies is as familiar to Lenalee as Jerry's cooking is. In a disgusting way, part of it has the aroma of cooking meat that she and her comrades eat every day—and perhaps she would not have known the difference had it not been for the scent of charcoal and sulfur combined.

They've lost another battle. They've lost another legion of men.

Her brother's face says it all as they walk with each other. Lenalee has a clipboard tucked in her arms when she glances his way and sees the slightest twist of a grimace on his features. This isn't the first mass burial they've had to prepare. It doesn't mean it gets easier with each one, though.

Lenalee cannot remember a childhood without the smell of burning flesh. This is what growing up with the Order means. Her brother had not been as lucky, uprooted from his life of normalcy for a the little sister cursed by God. She knows he wishes he could've sent the fallen home, where they belong.

But he can't. Because this is war, and war makes no exceptions.

 

(The Order is burning.

She knows by the smell permeating through the hospital wing door, when Lvellie walks in to force her to turn a hand she doesn't want to.

Lenalee steps out with Lavi supporting her shaking legs, and she sees an akuma in the form of an angel rising above the 5th laboratory. There's an irony in it. An angel of death, sending everyone into a premature grave.

She can't do anything right now—her goddamn legs won't work after the battle at sea. But she can't do nothing, because the smell of burning flesh tells her how this will all end if it goes on.

She can practically hear the incinerator whirring in her head as she steps forward to receive what's left of her Innocence, pooled in her palms. She doesn't know what will happen if she drinks it. She can die. She can turn into _that_. But it doesn't matter, because she doesn't want her friends to turn into what she knows: burning bodies in coffins, unable to find a way home.

Taking a trembling breath, she smiles, because maybe this is the last time, and drinks.)


End file.
